– My first show as a creative type at a wrestling promotion is on May 25, so if you wanna see one of my dreams come true, be there for it. Inspire Pro Wrestling: In Their Blood, featuring the best women’s wrestling in this part of the country, organized by a guy who cannot stop complaining about women’s wrestling. Also, a burlap sack monster from the 1930s is fighting an albino gorilla. Spread the word.

– If you’re in Austin, be sure to check out the in-town premiere of MEET ME THERE at the Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline on May 20. Goldust was gonna be there, but he has to tape a Smackdown. So if he wrestles Fandango or whatever, hate it even more.

Please click through for the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for May 12, 2014.

How does she do it? How does Lana make me love her even more every single week? Holy shit, she is the freakin’ greatest.

“Mr. Doogan, I give you one chance. Beg for mercy.”

The look of disdain on her face was so amazing. She’s like all the best bond villains wrapped up in one and happening to inhabit to body of all the best bond girls all wrapped up into one. It’s mind boggling.

I am too. Kudos to that crowd for popping that big for a Big E run-in. Sure, I feel like they would have popped for any babyface in that slot, but that just shows what a well-done segment that was prior to the run-in. The fact that Big E got literally zero offense on Rusev was nice, but I just hope that doesn’t lead to the babyface running in and interrupting one of Rusev’s next matches, because the run-in beat down should be a HEEL move. Then again, this company thinks John Cena and Sheamus are heroes, so what do I know?

I found myself really distracted by Nikki’s gear last night. And not “distracted” in a “man, she’s really hot” kind of way. More in a “She’s wrestling in bikini bottoms, and it’s impossible to take her seriously” kind of way. She’s kind of gotta wear a decent-sized shirt so she doesn’t spill out, but her briefs are smaller than her shirt, and it looks weird.

I was definitely distracted by her in a manly way. I was desperately trying to concentrate on the grappling, but was frequently interrupted by my brain yelling “DAT ASS!” My brain is an effective troll…

I just watched Fox’s backbreaker 5 times in a row. That thing is damn gorgeous, and the way she heaves Paige up and throws her down after is just so very much icing. Going to go watch it another 4 times.

Besides solidifying my love for Lana (I want to marry her and then take over Florida or something), I’m kinda hoping they just go balls out and make Langston a walking GI Joe and basically give me a huge black Sgt. Slaughter.

There was a while where I was pretty sure he’d gotten a lot better than he used to be. But just since the Evolution feud started, it’ felt like he’s gone backward. Maybe they’re giving him more to do– specific points to hit– and he’s not comfortable remembering them yet.

The best part of the show was Rusev breaking Duggan’s 2×4 over his knee, and Duggan IMMEDIATELY cowering in fear and being inevitably scarred for life because he just watched his best friend be killed by a hulking Bulgarian.

I feel like we’re living in a golden age of female wrestling characters – AJ, Renee, Lana, Paige, Emma, Bayley, Alexa, Summer, The Boss, they’re all amazing and I don’t think any of them besides maybe AJ have shown a fraction of what they could be given the right circumstances – which makes it all the more frustrating that Total Divas is a thing and we’re locked into however many more years of Bella twin, poor poor Nattie and Eva Marie screen time.

That Reigns Batista match was so fucking boring. Irish whips and clothlines in corners galore. They need to put Reigns in with someone with a faster pace and get him used to singles matches cause the Shield won’t be around forever.

Alicia Fox is a brilliant heel, who gets a lot of mileage out of what she have to work with. The post-match meltdown even glosses over her year of constant heel-face-heel-face-heel booking. (She’s crazy, but in a different flavour than AJ.) And she’s probably the superior female “veteran” wrestler on the active roster, so a perfect fit for Paiges first proper feud.

As for the Total Divas, keeping the in a separate storyline (with some natural crossover of Brie in the D bryan story) is a smart move. When that is said, I didn’t find the Natalya vs Nikki match as bad as Brandon. Sure, it was nowhere near the first womens match on the card, but it was OK. Nattie didn’t botch her moves, Nikki is obviously in much better shape that she used to be, and I don’t really get the whole “Nikki was mean” vibe Brandon seems to have picked up. It was just a “Good match, but I won” hair tussle, and when Nattie started attacking the other divas, Nikki took away the ripped up cards as to say “grow up, don’t make a scene”. We’re not talking Sheamus levels of meanness here! If this is the extent on TD-storyline we have to endure, fine by me.

she didn’t have to bring back the “LOSERRR!” sign/taunt to punctuate that she’s mean, man. she was mean all match and post match long… pushing each other, her and natalya. starting the slapfest, and pulling her hair. flipping her arms as in a “see how good I look and people pay attention to me but not you” gesture with a disgusted smug on her face while looking at natalya mid-match. she was THE b*tch personafied, here, and her clothes didn’t help her case, either. plus, the storyline is that she doesn’t like natalya’s (ugly) drawing but isn’t nice enough to not shout so in her face…

Adam Rose would probably get over like 10x quicker if he didn’t have the whitest man alive Michael Cole yelling “Adam Rose is fun! Come on this is fun!! Join in! How could you not like this guy? He’s fun!” Ugh.

I hit the fast forward through the Natayla match, the Sandow-Cody Rhodes match and the Dolph-Fandango match. Beause, ugh.

I watched the end of the show twice because I thought The Shield were going to get laid out by Evolution and The Gang, but then end up pulling off that sweet, sweet rally.

I liked Rusev in the ring against an aging, brain damaged WHITE guy, but then Big E had to run in and keep a somewhat disturbing storyline alive. It is a storyline, right? Rusev feuds with Big E for awhile, and then it’s on to Mark Henry, right? Is this where we’re going? Kinda painting Rusev and Lana into a corner there, WWE creative.

Can we just start the Adam Rose-Jack Swagger feud for real now?

It’s gotta suck to be the heavyweight champion and be stuck in the midcard. Honestly.

I’m done with Cena-Wyatts unless they come up with a different angle yesterday. Watching Cena blow through all three giant hillbillies each week is getting real old.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m pretty sure that Fandango’s declaration of love for and kissing of Layla was WWE’s rib on the Michael Sam situation. JBL’s shouting “You shouldn’t do that on television!” read, to me, as WWE making fun of everyone complaining about Michael Sam’s kiss with his boyfriend. Because JBL is the heel commentator and his extreme overreaction to a heterosexual kiss is a parody of everyone’s extreme overreaction to a homosexual kiss.

I usually don’t give WWE credit for being on the right side of these things, but we do know that they’ve had some fairly progressive attitudes about gay men, at least backstage, in the course of their history. I felt this was another example of them feeling like they could show it these days.

I personally find the USA chants not only the cheapest way to get heat, but also the most racist thing in wrestling’s history because of both how long it lasted and will last through the years, and how everybody just don’t have a problem with it at all because it’s their country! try colter trying to start a USA chant in the UK and see if people would like it…

all nationalities should be ok to root for. the only reason to hate someone is if they are bad at their job or acting like it. being from another country and being proud of that shouldn’t be prohibited because the fans might follow, right?

I’ve been on the Alicia Fox wave for years. Ever since she came in I was in some kind of love, even when she was doing some bullshit with DJ Gabriel, she was gorj.

When she became Diva’s champion, I felt like she was the only diva in YEARS that actually cared about her title, like literally treating it like a treasure and telling everyone who she was and why everyone should be chasing it. The next one was AJ Lee…..that’s a long time. If I’m not mistaken this was also when the Diva’s title itself was still either newly merged or still coexisting w/ the Women’s title, so to make THAT title seem more important than the Women’s in recent years did something special for me.

Of course she loses it to Melina, someone I didn’t care for though her increasingly botched ring entrances still stood the test of time to my visual taste, it was stupid. Melina returns, does nothing, and Alicia Fox loses the title into the abyss, that void that no one remembers up until AJ Lee.

In the ring? I literally thought Alicia Fox would be seriously hurt the way she sells, but surely enough she’s fine enough to win the match. She comes out like some weeks ago and hits Paige with 3 straight “Fuck You” backbreakers. And it just made me remember some of her underappreciated offense, which was so because of the circumstance of her not being pushed significantly and the Diva’s title feeling paper-ish while LayCool was on Smackdown being LayCool. That one leg drop Fox used to do was more impressive than it was given credit for.

I really do hope they or someone else sees what this feisty woman can offer. <3

Oh, I thought you meant Pin-Up Strong and her Abdominal Stretch. I always thought that her regular SharpShooter looked like ass (though I don’t think anyone but Bret ever made that move look good anyway).

Remember last week when it looked like Sheamus winning the U.S. title in the Dean Ambrose Punishment Battle Royal and then doing a backstage promo where he was kind of a dick about it seemed like the beginnings of a nice heel turn? Well you can forget about that because here he is this week, handily beating both members of an “adorable best buddies” tag team in consecutive matches to cement his status as a modern day WWE Good Guy™. It is frustrating to see someone in an endeavor that is about both athletic performance and character development be so good at the former and be a let down in the latter.

As long as I’m finally getting around to watching parts of Raw (as B&W went up while I was at work and couldn’t watch clips), JBL’s continued efforts to shit all over anything that has come from NXT is still infuriating and still makes exactly zero sense. But I know Brandon has devoted paragraph after paragraph to this, and nothing more can really be said. It’s just dumb and counter-productive, but that’s pretty much the only purpose the chucklemonsters serve anymore.

I listen to SWF podcast occassionally and they really took all the joy out of the Alicia Fox segment, as well as pooped all over the Bryan segment. Felt extreme over analysis on their part. Usually like their take, but it just ruined it for me.

My only issue with Paige and Alicia Fox is that their matches are always SO short – I think they’ve now had four ~3 minute matches on Raw/Superstars/Smackdown, and just as each one is getting going it’s over. The Superstars one is an especially good example – Paige opened up with some signature stuff, Alicia took over for a bit and it was starting to get great, then Paige took Fox’s legs out and locked in the Scorpion Crosslock for the win. There was no build to the finish.

Still, at least we’re getting 3 minutes of two great wrestlers wrestling well, and no confusing character alignments. I had no idea whether I was supposed to hate Nikki for being mean about something Nattie had put effort into, Nattie for being a stroppy baby, or all the rest of the Total Divas cast for taking the piss. I settled on ‘I hate them all, give me Emma vs Alicia Fox vs Paige triple threat instead of this nonsense.